Publication: CDNow / Allstar

Date: November, 2000

Transcribed bysomeone (?@?)

page:
title: Tool Gets Sued By Manager For $5 Million
author: Carrie Borzillo-Vrenna
Nov 25, 2000, 10:50 am PT
Tool
Larrikin Management's Ted Gardner, co-founder of Lollapalooza
and Tool's
manager of eight years, filed a $5 million-plus lawsuit against
Tool on
Wednesday (Nov. 22) in Los Angeles Superior Court.
The suit is for rescission of the management contract between
the band
(Maynard James Keenan, Adam Thomas Jones, Danny Carey,
and Justin
Chancellor) and Gardner, fraud, negligent misrepresentation,
breach of
contract, and quantum meruit.
Gardner claims that he was not paid his 20 percent commission
on, among
other things, the lucrative multi-million dollar joint venture deal
the band
made with Volcano, formerly Zoo, in 1998 that was a result of the
messy
Tool/Zoo legal battle (allstar, Dec. 7, 1998). Gardner claims that
the band
said they would not pay him his commissions unless he signed
a new
"extremely onerous" management contract, which "substantially
reduced the
commission rate of, and limited the time for, the continuing
commissions,"
according to the suit.
Gardner, who "was in financial dire straits by the end of 1999 as
a result
of defendants' actions," signed the new deal this March and the
band fired
him shortly thereafter, around May 23. According to the suit,
"[Tool] would
conceal from Gardner their intention to fire him and to deprive
him of his
continuing commissions. [Tool] would falsely represent that they
wanted
Gardner to be their manager.
"[Tool] would withhold the commissions they owed Gardner,"
continues the
suit, "thereby putting him in a precarious financial condition, until
he
signed a new, substantially less favorable management
contract, which would
specifically provide that [Tool] had no obligation to pay continuing
commissions if they terminated his employment for 'cause.' And,
once Gardner
signed the new agreement, [Tool] would immediately fire him,
without any
basis, and then assert that it was for 'cause.'" Gardner is asking
in excess
of $5 million to be determined at trial.
Under Gardner's management, Tool has sold more than
800,000 copies of Opiate, approximately 2 million copies of its
breakthrough album Undertow,
and approximately 2.4 million copies of Aenima. The band is
currently in the
studio working on a new album for an April 2001 release.
Meanwhile, to hold Tool fans over, a limited-edition box set
containing a CD
with previously unreleased live material, studio tracks, and the
band's
covers of Led Zeppelin's "No Quarter" and Peach's "You Lied,"
(Chancellor's
other band) as well as a DVD or VHS with all four videos will be
released on
Dec. 12.
The track listing for the box set is:
1. "Third Eye" (live)
2. "Part of Me" (live)
3. "Push It" (live)
4. "Harry Manback II" (unreleased studio track)
5. "You Lied" (live)
6. "Merkaba" (live)
7. "No Quarter" (unreleased studio track)
8. "L.A Municipal Court (unreleased studio track)
The DVD or VHS includes the videos for "Sober," "Prison Sex,"
"Stinkfist," and "Aenema."